Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I read the news of Google's US $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube today with some interest and trepidation. Geez. Who would (not) wanna be these guys? Co-founders Chad Hurley, 29 and Steven Chen, 27 talk about this "deal between kings" today.

The valuation on this deal is staggering. Did you know that we - YouTube's audience - are each worth US $32 per visit? Yet seeing that "Any sort of material that's posted on YouTube that includes music is in violation of copyright law," one can't help but think that's it for all those online replays, snippets and fan vids. Let's hope that we, YouTube's real "assets" don't get shortchanged for the sake of "shareholder" value.